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Thursday, 19 September 2013

With each passing year the online business
world grows exponentially and there are an increasing number of people who want
to get into internet marketing. But most people don’t really even know what
that means or what it takes. There are so many things that go under the overall
internet marketing umbrella that if you spoke to 100 different “internet
marketers” and asked them what they do, you would probably get 100 different
answers. Most of us have a hard time even trying to explain what it is we do to
inquiring minds.

So, what is internet marketing? Here are just
some of the things a day in the life of an internet marketer entails…

* Keyword Research – When you are going to launch a new
website, information product, write a new post, or just about anything else,
you need to know if there is a market out there for it. Otherwise you could be
wasting a lot of time on something that nobody cares about and will never make
you any money. In order to that it is important to do keyword research ahead of
time. This is something that a lot of people either forget or intentionally
skip over for some reason, and it can often lead to total failure.

Researching a market can be a very lengthy and
detailed process. You often need to check search volume, competition level,
trends, demographics, whether the target audience has money to spend and are
willing to pay, and many other things. It should be done carefully and without
assumptions based on what you want to happen. As an internet marketer, you
might spend an entire day (or longer) just doing keyword research.

* Web Design – In order to market anything on the
internet or build an online business, you need to have a website of some sort.
There are plenty of tools and resources available (such as WordPress) that will
help build a site for you. However, it still takes time to learn how to use
those tools and actually get a site built the way you want it. Even the most
newbie friendly content management systems have a learning curve and take time
to set up. Then, you must learn some coding in order to make changes in certain
places and customize your site beyond the basic themes/templates that site
builders and CMS solutions include.

And let’s not forget about domain
registrations, DNS settings, system installs, settings tweaks, content uploads,
and so on. Those things also take time to do and require you to learn how to do
them. There’s a lot that goes into building a website and it’s just one part of
being an internet marketing professional.

* Writing Content – This is something that takes up a LOT
of time in the regular routine of just about every internet marketer. Content
is king in the world of online marketing. You need it for almost everything you
do. Whether you are building a static website, updating your blog, marketing
your sites, writing press releases and articles, responding to emails, replying
to comments, sending out your newsletter, creating an information product,
copywriting, participating in forums, keeping up your social media accounts,
and so on… You will be writing and writing some more. It’s all about content in
the online world so get ready to wear out many keyboards on your computer!

* Blogging – The world of websites has no doubt
shifted towards blogs in recent years and will likely continue to do so until
they are the predominant force in the online world. Blogging is a very
important part of internet marketing in many ways. Depending on your business
model, it can actually be absolutely vital to online success. It is great for
making a name for yourself, getting your content out to the world, helping to
spread the word about your brand, building up a following, or even making money
from your blog itself. Some internet marketers even earn their entire incomes
from blogging. Although, in that case, they are typically called bloggers, but
the two professions overlap in many ways.

* Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) – This part of
the video could be an entire course all in itself. In fact, there are hundreds
of books, courses, seminars, blogs, and websites dedicated solely to SEO
training. My business partner and I are even in the process of writing a new
ebook about this subject, which will actually be four ebooks and somewhere
around 200 pages of information. It is also a part of online marketing that can
be an entire business or full time job by itself, and often is. So, with that
being said, I am not going to get into a lot of details or specifics in this
video about what it is or how to do it. There’s simply too much to cover.

I’ll just say that it’s extremely important
and a huge part of what most internet marketing specialists do in their regular
routine. There are thousands of internet marketers who spend day after day
doing search engine optimization and almost nothing else. It takes a very long
time to master the process and perfect the techniques. Plus, it is always
changing, so staying on top of it all can be exhausting. Take me for example,
my main specialty has been SEO for the past 10 years and I still learn
something new almost every day.

* Social Media Marketing (SMM) – I’m sure you probably have profiles on
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Pinterest, and maybe even a few
others. If you don’t then you certainly know someone close to you who does.
Well, a typical internet marketer like me will have all of those profiles plus
another 10 or 20 or more accounts on other social media sites that we have to
manage.

Think about how much time you spend on those
sites every day. It’s easy to pass an hour or two without even noticing it. And
you are probably just using them to keep up with friends, family, and what’s
happening around your area. Us internet marketers do all of that plus use them
to network with business associates and prospects, keep up on our industry,
spread the word about our content, and for other marketing reasons.

Being a social media consultant and doing all
the social media marketing and updating for companies is something many people
do as a full time business. It is that time consuming. But internet marketing
specialists have to fit it into our daily schedule along with about a million other
things.

* Pay Per Click (PPC) – When you search something on Google
you will notice there are usually some ads at the top above the organic
rankings and a tower of them on the right side next to the organic results.
They look a lot like the regular results but are slightly different. These are
paid ads through a program called Google Adwords. When someone says pay per
click ads this is usually what they are referring to, even though there are
technically many different forms of PPC. A business owner bids on certain
keywords in order to get their ad to show there and they pay for every click
generated.

This is very popular among internet marketers
and anyone other businesses with products or services they sell online. The
keyword research, set up, and management takes a lot of time, effort and skill.
You can waste a lot of money if you just throw up your ad and let it go. Top
PPC guru’s can spend years learning, testing, and tweaking their systems in
order to master Adwords and make their campaigns profitable.

* Email Marketing – This is basically building up a list
of email subscribers, cultivating a trusting relationship with them so they
become your raving fans, sending them useful content and resources, keeping
them updated on the latest news in the niche they are interested in or about
your business, and sending all sorts of other information. One popular saying
in the IM world is, “the money is in the list” and there is a lot of truth to
that. But it’s not easy to build a profitable list and as an online marketer
you will spend a lot of time mastering this particular skill.

* Product Creation – Another huge thing that online
marketer’s do is create information products such as ebooks, along with
membership sites, business services, SEO and marketing tools, plugins, themes,
and so on. Those things take days, weeks, or even months to create depending on
what it is. Almost every website or web based service you use, or ebook you
read, were created by some sort of digital marketing expert in one way or another.

* Videos – A huge part of internet marketing
nowadays is video production. When I started my business back in 2003 this
wasn’t really a big deal at all. There were very few people doing them in those
days. But video marketing has exploded in the past few years and will only
continue to grow into the future. These can be educational, instructive, funny
with the intent of going viral, or created for marketing purposes. Whatever the
reasons for videos, the fact is they are a part of running an internet business
now and they take a lot of work to do.

This point is actually quite easy to get
across because you are watching an internet marketing video right now. It took
me a lot of time to bring together all of this information, condense it, write
out points I wanted to discuss, record the video, and upload it. Then, I will
do it over and over again with more marketing videos for years to come. And
this is just a basic video sitting here talking to you. Imagine how much work
goes into a big production like the ones we, here at Be Always Marketing, do
for our clients!

Okay that pretty much covers it for now but,
as I said, those are just SOME of the main things you will be doing regularly.
There’s a lot more that you will surely be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly,
and yearly basis. I’ve really only scratched the surface of what being an
internet marketing specialist fully entails. I didn’t even get into phone
calls, client servicing, meetings, media buying, webinars, seminars, forums,
support, training, and so on. It virtually never ends!

So, it’s definitely not all fun and games
relaxing on the beach like many people think. Internet marketing is a real
business and there is a lot of work involved to build it, grow it, and maintain
it. But if you are up for the challenge and willing to put in the time and
effort, it can be a very rewarding way to make a living!